Art Beijing 2007, the contemporary art fair, lifted its curtain on Wednesday in Beijing, turning the new hall of Beijing's National Agricultural Exhibition Center into a festival gala for Asian contemporary artists from China, Japan and Korean and also a grand stage for artists from the rest of the world.

The fair has gathered more than 100 exclusive exhibitors from both home and abroad, with over 70 percent coming from Asian galleries, making it one of the largest collective shows of Asian contemporary arts so far.

Themed "the future of art", this art fair have staged a great number of fascinating and impressive art works, in a large variety of artistic styles and focuses, with unique artistic techniques in their way of expression. Besides excellent art works from well established artists, new powers with cutting-edge art talent also debuted their art works, becoming a fresh representative force emerging in the field.

New development of contemporary arts can also been seen in this exhibition. "Contemporary" art is not simply limited to the time period, but stresses on innovative application of artistic techniques and bold employment of materials that go beyond the paper or canvas to anything from plastics, hair or even egg shells. Moreover, it mainly highlights the modern concepts and profound understanding of the present life, conveyed either through paintings or other forms of art works.

"As far as I am concerned, I want to tune my art works to the tempo of the society and reflect my understanding of life," said painter Pian Shan, also the general director of Jixiangboju Art Center. He explained one of his own works on display, a black-and-white reflective mirror art work, which was based on a glimpse of a parade in Germany, "Everyone plays a role in the world, the time you look outward at the figures in the mirror, it may remind you to look inward at yourself". Painter Pian Shan added, "The art gallery may have to meet the demand of the market, but appreciation for art itself is forever free".

As learned from the fair, besides new forms of arts, for a large part, the idea of being contemporary is embodied by a harmonious integration of modern views with traditional elements, like traditional background with landscape in ink painting and extremely bright colors that's popular in China.

Compared with Chinese artworks, Korean contemporary art on display stresses more on the selection of materials, like works by Korean artist Park Sung Tao, a big collection of brilliant artworks made with aluminum net.

As introduced by Dong Mengyang, the director of this big event, "We aim to make this fair a big platform for art, with which we can present to the world what we have in Asia."

He added, "There is no denying that we focus on the commercial side of art, in the hope that with skillful employment of this method, we can boost the development of art that is not commercially targeted".